Committing to Commitment: The Trudeauian Nonperformative

After kneeling in solidarity with antiracism protestors as a tribute to George Floyd, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau held a press conference and committed his government to reducing systemic racism. Trudeau’s commitment is an institutional speech act, a performative, that commits the government to action. Many critics felt his gesture and commitment were performative in the non-Austinian sense—in that it was fake, inauthentic, mere gesture—or what Austin would call an “unhappy” or failed performative. This case study interprets it instead as what Sara Ahmed calls a nonperformative: an institutional speech act that succeeds because it does not do what it says. Trudeau’s commitment points towards how focusing only on the success or failure of an institutional performative can potentially obscure the way said performative maintains a politics-as-is while simultaneously promising political change